President Thabo Mbeki has fallen victim to a German smear campaign that seeks to link him to corruption in the arms deal. National police commissioner Jackie Selebi is the victim of a local smear campaign linking him to Brett Kebble and sundry shady characters. This comes soon after Jacob Zuma was fired following a smear campaign linking him to fraud Schabir Shaik, and Billy Masetlha is still trying to live down the smear that led to him losing his job as Mbeki’s chief spook. Another smear campaign suggested Bulelani Ngcuka spied for the apartheid government.

“Garbage, total and unadulterated garbage,” was how Selebi described claims that he was linked to murdered mining magnate Kebble or any of his alleged illegal activities, as well as to Glenn Agliotti, an associate of Kebble who has since been linked to an alleged drug- and cigarette-smuggling syndicate, as reported by the Sunday Independent newspaper at the weekend.

Even more puzzling is that the culprit remains at large despite Selebi appearing to be “well aware” of the identity of the person. Why the reluctance to act and apprehend whoever is behind a smear campaign against the national police commissioner?

As newspapers continue to report on Mbeki’s alleged links to SA’s controversial multibillion-rand arms deal, the Sunday Times reported last weekend that “people close to Mbeki” believe the president too has fallen victim to a “smear campaign”.

It is useful at this point to recall how Masetlha lost his job. He discovered, through investigative methods that may not have been kosher, a wide-ranging conspiracy to destroy the careers of Zuma and African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe. The conspiracy was led by high-level government and ANC people and its prime method was a smear campaign against the two.

But an official state investigation found that it was in fact Masetlha and his crew of crooked spies who were the actual conspirators, and the e-mails they produced as evidence were their attempt to smear senior government and ANC figures.

Clearly we have a problem. Either our most senior public figures are whingers who cannot accept responsibility for their own failures — in which case Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula has already suggested what they should do — or the smear campaign has become the only sport in which a South African national team has a realistic chance of winning.

But unfortunately for Nqakula, who infamously told three opposition MPs that they should just shut up about crime or pack for Perth, it’s not only the opposition benches that are overpopulated by whingers and crybabies.

When your spy chief, your police chief, your prosecutions chief, your president, his deputy and a good number in the cabinet have all been victimised by one conspiracy or another, your national politics has degenerated towards the abyss.

Conspiracy, smear and counter-smear, malice and refusal to take responsibility have permeated the national culture. No one fails because they suck at their job. It is because malicious forces have it in for them. Our reputations do not suffer damage because of our own personal weaknesses and actions, they are maliciously targeted through smears. Thus it is possible for Zuma to blame the entire media for “defaming” him, forgetting all the obtuse things he has said and done without any prompting.

And the problem has spread beyond politics. It is now possible for Springbok coach Jake White to blame the referee for the biggest tri-nations loss ever to be suffered by his charges, forgetting that for a referee to facilitate a 49-0 loss, he would have to be playing for the Australians.

It has become increasingly common for senior politicians to cry conspiracy whenever they face tough questions about governance. It has become the standard knee-jerk answer for genuine investigation of government corruption from the cabinet to local government councils. Politics in SA has degenerated to such an extent that one can easily be forgiven for thinking that it resembles the plot in a B-grade spy movie. Government and the ANC are awash with conspiracy. It points to an alarming political culture.

Unless it is arrested its effect on our nascent democracy will be devastating. We have already witnessed the paralysing effect of conspiracy politics on the ruling party and seen how, left unchecked, it has spilled over and threatens to engulf sections of the state apparatus. The consequences of this debilitating culture will be felt for years to come.

Conspiracy in government tends to breed intolerance, fear and paranoia. This will in turn lead to repression and the closing down of democratic space.

With acknowledgements to Karima Brown and Business Day.